YouSaid · the spoken record

Adam Lashinsky

lines on the record: 128
first: 2017-06-26
most recent: 2017-06-26
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“And then hashtag FML, which is fuck my life, meaning he's lamenting not being able to have sex with his employees, which I think is not appropriate for a CEO. I know I'm strict about these things, but it's kind of... I'm saying that memo was famous within Uber, like that, whoa, we're such ballers, so to say, that we can write mem”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Which is like what? You shouldn't be like, okay. And then don't have sex with someone in your direct report, but if you decide to have sex, or three of you do, make sure everybody's consensual, which, okay, good advice. But from a frat guy, not a CEO of a company. And then at the last part, which I thought was to me the crowning glory of this particular appalling memo, was I can't have sex with anyone because I'm the CEO”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, you published a memo that Travis wrote this. He felt compelled. Some reason to write a memo to his employees before an off-site in Miami saying giving them ground rules on how they should behave at the meeting. I think it includes something like don't have sex with someone who's your subordinate. What else?”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so if you want to say, well, why didn't you, why weren't you looking harder for it? Why didn't you push harder on it? Fine. I spoke to women who complained to me about how they were treated by their managers. Because they were jerks, essentially, or whatever, or whatever. Early jerks, Arianna Huffington. I talked to women who described the work cations, you know, workations, you know, they would send teams to places to launch a city and they would all go out partying at night who told me about it, you know, as being one of the things they love the most at Uber.”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, I interviewed women on the record for this book. I interviewed women off the record for this book. And this subject didn't come up. So if you're asking me, did I not know? I didn't know.”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My issue is that you couldn't cover Fox News without knowing his reputation. Did you know about this stuff and not write about it, or did you just feel it was like nothing, or is it an issue of covering Silicon Valley that people turn a blind eye to some really serious things, which you reference with Silicon Valley Venture Capitalists don't care anything about except about getting the payoff, essentially?”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And ride your ails where he wrote this scathing expose of Roger Ailes, and nowhere in there did he mention the rampant allegations of sexual harassment. Well, it wasn't rampant allegations of sexual harassment at News Corp or at Fox News. Which had been, and the terms of which had been that those people didn't talk about it So, this is Gave Sherman's reporting.”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I addressed it You can judge me on how if I addressed it enough sufficiently. Yeah, I understand that. And secondly, so to the extent that because this is an important element of the story, shame on me.”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And where I discuss the, you know, Susan Fowler's allegations, which happened after I turned in my manuscript, and the subject of women and Uber more generally. That's number one.”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Ability to change, to do this, which to me is sort of I didn't clean my bedroom excuse. You know what I mean? Are you kidding me? Like, you can't put in normal systems. So why did, I'm going to say why'd you miss this? There was a little sexual harassment problem going on. There was a sexism problem. There was a party problem. There was a sort of careless behavior towards employees and drivers and literally it's pervasive through this company. It's hard to miss.”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's good people, it's still this week, it's shown it's just rained down on those good people. They're sucked into the middle of incredible misbehavior. I want to get to the financial parts of it too, you know, how you think about the business going forward and all these businesses, but talk a little bit about, I told you I was going to ask this question, but in this book, nowhere do we have any really small amounts of, oh, there's such bros and they're so tough and this and that, nowhere any of the stuff that Susan Farrell alleged. Same thing in the Brad Stone book. It's as if it didn't exist. Now, that's not all that matters, but it's what's causing all the problems, this explosive blog post by a very brave woman named Susan Fowler, who worked there, who was alleging sexism, sexual harassment, and essentially just corporate malfeasance. I think that's really, it's more so than anything else. It's how they run the company like it was an episode of Game of Thrones, essentially, that it was a constant, the managers were untrained, there was no way to report things, there were no HR systems in place, and I think Uber's excuse the whole time to me and others has been, well, we've been so fast building it, we had no...”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Have a separate conversation about is this a real business? Can it ever be a real business? I also think the answer is yes.”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I promise you I'll answer you. I once had this conversation with Mark Zuckerberg. I saw the lightning quick wit and intelligence when someone else at Fortune was working about to start a feature story. And I said, you know, we're just starting this feature story. And I think we're really concerned about some of these Russian billionaires or oligarchs. We're involved in killing people, being investors in Facebook. And without betting an eye, he said to me, I'm glad you're not working. You're not writing the story. And so I don't think, let me rephrase that, I think there's good people doing good work and doing good corporate work at Uber. And I don't think that takes away from your question. And the things that you're talking about, I think it's possible to do what they're doing without being shifty.”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so what conclusion did you come? Is this a sustainable, this is what made it the way it is? Because it's not like any company we've covered. I think you and I can both agree. I mean, you would never think Facebook behaves like this, although they've done plenty of sneaky things, but it's not the same, you know what I mean? I'm thinking of all the companies we covered. Is there a close, the only close company I can think of is Microsoft. And even he looks like a little kitten comparatively. He's not a kitten.”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And to tell the story. And maybe we could have a conversation about the notion of passing judgment. I think my style is to present it, analyze it, and tell it in an entertaining way You get to judge.”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't think you have to go as far as criminal enterprise. It's not like it's the Gaudi family here, but you know what I mean? When they have a choice to do something a little sneaky, possibly criminal, or the right way, it seems this is the shift that they get.”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I didn't I didn't have that feeling. I mean, yeah, there's like, and some of the things, and I know we're going to get to this, some of the things I simply didn't know about. I didn't uncover. But I, you know, number one along the way, I saw plenty of good. And, I mean, look, if it were If I did think it were a criminal enterprise”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's not the number one, it's not the only theme. It's not like I certainly don't. They didn't project to me, or I didn't have the daily feeling like this is a criminal enterprise. I have had people who say to me, well, don't you think it's like a mafia organization?”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, right. So I want to get to when you were doing the research for the book. Why do it? Why continue? Because it doesn't really work. It doesn't ultimately work. You get found out and now have a target on your back because people just assume that you're going to lie to them. You assume you're going to be aggressive. Do you think it's a good strategy? And then we'll get into where they're going next. When you were doing the research for this book, it seems like it's a never-ending theme of that company, correct?”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think that does to a what Well, if by not fully you mean not profitable, yes. And if by not fully you mean brings a storm down on you that ends up having real ramifications on the company, then yeah, right.”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think gray balling is being criminally investigated, so that's not shifty, that's criminal. So what do you think that does to a is that something that can get you successful to a certain point but not fully, correct?”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I interviewed this guy who worked at Red Swoosh who told me that Travis, this is 20 years ago, They'd have a whiteboard or whatever the version of a whiteboard was then. And he would write a dollar sign with big numbers on the whiteboard. And this guy said to me, you know, I'd go by there and the number he just wrote a large number for people who would be walking by to see the large number It was shifty”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But anonymous phones to call for rides and then cancel them or take the ride and say you really ought to be driving for Uber.”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Early on, they did that. But let's get to Sneaky because Sneaky seems to be their favorite move on lots of things, not just gray balling, but it goes back in history. Like one sneaky move. What's the word that they use to call lift drivers? I forget.”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We're not going to be like a little sneaky about the regulatory issue. We're going to be completely transparent that we don't, you know, we don't care. And we're going to go in and we're going to start operating. And when they come to us to say, we think you're illegal, we're going to fight with them and we're going to get people drivers and riders to be on our side. And we forget in 2017 that there was this moment when Uber was beloved. Headlines saying what a great thing this is. People saying how much they love their Uber. And so on”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's no question in my mind, although it's hard to separate the bravado or the attitude from the actions because, again, it's worth pointing out. That Lyft was the first to do a damn the regulator strategy to say we don't think these taxi rules apply to us, so we're going to do it anyway. And Uber's did a white paper. I think Travis wrote a white paper that said we think this is illegal. We're concerned about that, and they had conversations about it. Then they said, oh, well, okay, it may be illegal, but we better do it quickly, or we're going to get beaten by these guys. But what you're talking about is, yes, they sort of led with their chin.”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was that the difference, the obnoxiousness, the pushing around of regulators, the sort of ugly statements that he would make that he would, you talked about that in the book quite a bit, that he'd just pop off with a statement that was usually somewhere between appalling and disgusting at any one point”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Very nice. But, you know, look, we. We all go with what we've got And I think Lyft is gone. That's who they are. And Uber is who they are.”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And the funny thing about the way you introduce that is that Zimmer isn't even the CEO. This is Logan Green, but nobody knows is the CEO.”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But I was like, you're kidding me. And they're like, we think it's great. I said, I think you're 12 year old boys. But okay. But that was different. So what was the mentality? What was the difference between those two?”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You're going to Yeah, and when you get off the elevator at Uber, it's sort of like those hotels and Soho where you're a little scared because you're not sure which way to turn or if the floor will hold”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The Death Star, and you think I better not stand on these stairs because it's going to open up, and the shark, you're going to fall in the shark. I think about that all the time. And then there are rooms which Arianna just redubbed the peace room was called The War Room.”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right. And even their offices, like you go in and you get a foot massage lift, and then they give you fresh kombucha, and then there's pink everywhere. It's lovely. And then you go to Uber and it looks like a bond movie.”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I was like, okay, about it. And he goes, it's just wrong. And I feel like I can save the world that way. And he really meant it. It wasn't like some bullshit. You know what I mean? Like, he really meant it. And he walked away and Dicaso turned to me and said, Travis is going to kill him.”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't know how to even describe him. He's just really, he came over one time to, I was sitting at Dick Costolo and someone else who used to be the CEO of Twitter. And he said, he came over, he goes, you know, Kara, the reason I'm doing this is because 80% of the car is not in use, and that's wrong for our planet. Like, he's right. There's one person sitting in the car. There's five. I get it. Like, I was like, 80%. Let's just think about that”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Product because they had the app worked. They were already established all around the country and in other parts of the world, which lift wasn't, and they had a lot of money.”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And university campuses Lyft then had the idea, let's pivot, take this idea, make it into a way that we can power ordinary people with their cars. And by the way, we can make the calling part look a lot like what Uber does. When it took Uber some time to realize that they'd been beaten. Once they realize they'd been beaten, they were able to move really quickly into lifts.”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's what I'm getting. Well, it was better Lyft wasn't doing it at the time. Lyft, what we now know as Lyft had a business called ZimRide, which was organizing rides for corporate campuses.”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, and the story that I love to tell is that the first time I met him, I don't know if I'd ridden Uber or not, but I had used it to send our babysitter home because I thought it was a great, I could, I didn't have to take it home and I could watch her progress and make sure that she got home and I could pay for it. Thought that was great, and I told him this. I said, You know, I got a great idea for you. You need to market this. As a great thing, he's like, could not have been less interested in the babysitter, I know.”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So there was a great market. It's a big market and they hit it hard. It's interesting to remember that they built it up by doing a limousine product.”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So Yeah, the cliche these people love to talk about is product market fit. And they had it. You know, they had it in the sense that anyone who rode a taxi in San Francisco before Uber came along knew that the experience sucked. You might get picked up, you might not. If you called for one, it might come. It might not. You might make it to the airport on time. And they figured out an abundantly better way of doing that. And again, cliche, but I felt it. I remember feeling it. It was magical. Wow, this just works.”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“it wasn't so well right okay so talk a little bit about the founding view why the reason i'm talking about his personality because you know maybe he's just an asshole that could be just you know what i mean that really is often the explanation for a lot of people in silicon valley but what do you think got them different like what did you come to the conclusion in the book what was it the app was it the what was it”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, you know, he sort of played both those positions. And, you know, yeah, he tells stories about having been bullied for being a nerd. That was a bad word probably growing up in Northridge. It's a badge of honor in Silicon Valley. But I never got, I didn't get the sense from him telling those stories that there were deep emotional scars.”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For other Americans who, yeah, yes, exactly. That's true Yeah, he was teased. He was athlete of sorts, but he was also an athlete. He was a good runner, good baseball player”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, I mean, his father's a hunter and had waffles of dead animal heads, which was disturbing. But there are other Americans who, yeah, yes, exactly, not many in the internet space, but yes, certainly. That's true. But it was interesting because he talked about bullying. That's why he talked a lot about being bullied.”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was an Indian guide about 10 years before Travis was. And he tells me this story about a fundraising drive for a camping trip or something for the Indian guides where they sold pancakes in front of the supermarket or tickets to the pancake event in front of the supermarket. And he was bound and determined at age 10 or whatever to sell the most freaking pancakes, as you said repeatedly, than any other Indian guidance. So he'd stay there until the wee hours of the night in order to do that. The point was that he was motivated like that at a very young age. He was driven.”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it was So I would love to tell you that I found the Travis' rosebud, and I absolutely set out to find it. And I asked people who knew him back then, you know, what do you think his rosebud was? What was motivating him? He tells me this story in the book about when he was an Indian guy. Do you know what Indian guides were? They're no longer called Indian guides, but a program run by the YMCA for boys to spend more time with their dads.”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The Kinkos are yeah, yeah, just real modest but lovely people and very funny. I couldn't believe these. I thought he hired these people. I was like, where's the mean mom and the abusive father? And it was really interesting because, you know, it was sort of an unusual place for him to come home. So I'd love to know what you think how that happened.”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Howard Schultz didn't found Starbucks, but he made it. Right. Not to take away from him. But Garrett Camp's idea was an important one. Travis kind of like was around when they started operations.”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and the point I was driving to is that that happened off the top of my head 2008, I think. You know, I've been here since 1997. I tend to know the people who are modestly successful. I never knew the guy. I met him in 2010 after Uber was starting to go up. Now, I only point that out to say that he wasn't one of these A players by the time Uber came around. He was a player in that world. We could quickly name 20 people who were more important. So there's a lot of luck involved. This was like the right thing. And by the way, right when he decided that he was going to go to Uber, again, I love it. I love all these references to him having founded Uber, which simply isn't the case.”
2017-06-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT